The Mini War Room

Monday, 19 September 2016

So tournaments are a ton of fun. In this case it was the first tournament our area has had and brought together 6 players. A small tournament is the perfect for a lot of reasons, they're fun, you get in some games and more importantly they bring together a community.

That definitely happened last weekend. I wish I had taken pictures, but in all honesty I was just trying to figure out what I was doing. Team yankee is close to flames of war, but it's not flames of war. And you have to remember that.

So three games and they all went pretty quickly.

We used the Mission selector and as such each person could pick what they wanted to do on a table after seeing it and comparing it to their army. It was awesome. I loved the Generals game before the game, where it allowed you to make tactical decisions based on the force you had, the enemy you were facing and the ground as it lay. This is possibly the most important and best decision battlefront made with the game. There. I said it.

So First game was on an interesting table, farmlands were broken up by a large town in the center of the table. There was a lot of room to move but the center of the table blocked off forces and really made manoeuvre both required and at times difficult.

I got to play against West Germans, a T-72 Battalion and a BMP-1 Motor Rilfe Battalion. It was awesome, all really different forces and just a ton of fun.

I'd go through the games but really this one was just about people learning the rules, having some fun and bringing together a community.

Now the biggest thing I realized in all of this is the cards... I hate the cards. I wanted to like them. I really did. But I just make a mess of them all over, I never find the right one and I just keep fumbling through it before going to the book.

I can't wait to play again and am looking forward to watching my community really get on board and start loving a really fun game.

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

So game one is in the books. Wow.... Seriously. This is everything I wanted.

This is not to say the game is perfect but I was grinning ear to ear with BMPs and T-72s crashing about and German kit popping up everywhere to exact a toll.

This guy is a happy guy.

So the I ran the list I showed a few posts ago, Motor Rifle Battalion. Two medium coys with T-72 support, Hinds, Shilkas, 2S1s, and some recce. It's a ton to put on the table.

We decided to do a Hasty attack. Rolling off I was to attack into Germany (HOW THEMATIC I LOVE IT!)

I think it's an interesting scenario, both players making choices and forces moving to assist, it's a great scenario.

The field of battle

My opponent picked his table edge, finding a small farm house as the center of his defence.

As it's a hasty attack born out of an advance to contact I had to pick my reserves first to present to the enemy but he had to deploy first (again I can't stop thinking about how well written this scenario is) so I took my two Motor Rifle Coys, the T-72 and the 2S1s. This is where I realized I had made my first mistake, I had not preplanned a DF for my artillery and with Soviet artillery that could be bad. But I think in this planning phase I made a really good decision taking the artillery over the Hinds.

I love Hinds. Seriously, they're just cool, but air of any sort in this game is a really neat generals game. By leaving them off I forced my opponent to consider leaving his air defence off the table, which he did. With my having immediate reserves vice his scattered delayed reserves this gave me some assurances of at least getting off a volley of shots before losing the birds. Had he put his AD on the table I would have been in a position to take it out fighting against his limited forces.

The more I think about it the more cool this game is.

He placed his infantry in the farm house with their Marders hiding behind a roadsign like a bunch of cops. From there he placed a troop of tanks on one flank, a troop of tank hunters on the other and somewhere lay in wait another troop of dreaded Leopard 2s.

In response I loaded one flank with two companies of infantry dismounted and placed their BMPs in the center and on the opposing flank. I was hoping this would force a decision on my opponents part of fighting the light armour or dealing with the Infantry with tanks.

My T-72s were in the center of my armour and my 2S1s hung back waiting for the call to fire.

Turn One I pushed forward with my Tanks and the central BMPs While the Infantry pushed the flank. The BMPs in the treeline sat in wait to pounce on anything that broke cover.

One Leopard 2 was destroyed and the Squadron Commander was double bailed, but hung around. With pretty much my whole army out in the open I waited for the response.

The OC didn't remount, something about double checking the systems. He popped his Ambush infront of my Infantry as the likes of a whole company moving to assault his tank hunters wasn't a fair fight. MGs rattled off but the walls of the industrial complex protected the Soviets. Missiles rang out and destroyed the three BMPs that had turned to face the tank destroyers.

On the other flank one T-72s turret arced high into the air as the secondary detonation of the ammunition erupted. But a flurry, a mighty cacophony of 2s rolled by the Germans was the only thing that protected the Russian force. Seriously. I had rolled well, but the compounding factor of just a crazy series of 2s really opened the door for me. No tactical genius here, just some luck. And in war that's half the day.

Turn 2 and the hinds show up....

So then Infantry keep moving to the objective while the coy in the industrial complex hold firm.

So yeah. I have 2 pretty solid kill zones. On the right the two remaining Leopards go down. The Commander lives, seriously. He's like Iron. I can't break him.

On the Left Artillery gets a lucky hit and kills a Leopard, and 6 missiles scream out and take down another. The remaining Leo stays in the fight.

In the middle at the farm the shootout begins. I drop all of the Marders and take some HIGHLY ineffective shots at the infantry.

His turn two sees the boss remount, who with the infantry drop 3 T-72s and bail the other two who pass their test.

The remaining Leopard 2 moves to contest the objective.

Hes had better days.

The OCs tank was destroyed by the T-72s that remounted and the Barrage of AT missiles from the Hinds took out the last member of the pl. Hilariously this is the one time in the game where I rolled nothing but hits, all 6 of them on one tank.

The infantry shelled the tank hunters and assaulted the remaining one, bailing and capturing it.

His Infantry, stubborn as all hell, held the center.

He rolled up reserves on his turn and on came two Luchs right into the heat of things.

They managed to kill the Gremlin team, but that was it, with two companies of Infantry with all of their AT, the Hinds and the remaining BMPs the Germans didn't send forth anymore troops to hold the position. We called it there.

This was an interesting intro to Team Yankee.

First impression, THINGS DIE FAST IN MODERN WAR! Seriously, really super fast, and in large amounts. Modern warfare is a dangerous business and this game shows the carnage.

Missions still rule this game and I love that. Yeah I'm hooked.

The models are cool and with great scenery who wouldn't want to play more of this?

So yeah, I have one game down now. Hopefully a bunch more in my future, but at least one game under my belt as I look to go to our areas first tournament this weekend.

In the more missions back there is a bit of a generals gambit to start things off with players essentially taking a tactical stance, picking between three options, Prepared attack, hasty attack and Defend. From here you compare both players choices and consult a chart which determines what type of scenario you'll roll to play between Meeting engagements, mobile battles and defensive battles.

It's a super cool simple little mechanic that will enable players yet another place to game each other and play out the part of commanders. Looking at the table and each others armies you can attempt to sway the situation more favorably or as I am want to do at least less favorably for your opponent.

This is something I really appreciate. The chance to situate myself in a place where my army can do what it wants to, at the cost of potentially getting caught off guard by a bold move. This is everything I want in a modern game.

So with that I'm trying to:

1)Learn all the missions; and
2)Decide which army to then play based off that understanding.

So I have three options for army to play, which is all three current lists the Soviets have, a T-72 Bn, a Motor Rifle Bn, and an Afghantsy Air Assault Bn. If I go Afghantsy I will have to assemble more Hinds, which I'm not fond of but its still in there.

So really right now I'm looking at massed T-72s vs a more General MRB list.

VS

So what do you guys think? Should I go tanks? Fall back on what I know with the Infantry or take to the air in big ass assault helos? Did I mention I really hate flying in Helos?

Right now I've basically decided that with either list I'm going to attack. Setting up to defend in a defensive battle gives time of the attack to my opponent. And as I hate leaving home without thermal I don't want to put my soviet force at a huge disadvantage right off the hop.

Any big advise from experienced Soviet Commanders? I'm all ears. Hit me up in the comments.

So with my core set I knew I needed arbor to make up a combined arms team so six T-72s seemed like something that could draw some attention and dish or some hurt from time to time.

So a combat team worth its salt has arty and so 3 2S1s will give me some some to gain lodgement and then harassing fires.

One of my favorite memories from Afghanistan was sitting in a Shilka in a tank graveyard, so 4 of those joined my lossy and won't be leaving anytime soon. I don't care if they don't even shoot they look awesome. Seriously who doesn't love this thing.

So the hind. The most beautiful ugly tank granted flight by the gods of war. How many can I take? Six? Only six? Fine I'll take six. Front there two small two team BMP-2 recce pls brings me up to 99 points and 8 pls.

Monday, 5 September 2016

In am seriousness having twins, moving across the country and starting a new job took its toll and well this was one of the things that took the brunt of our. But with things a little more under control and a new project under way I'm back into the thick of it.

With both feet forward I'm jumping into team yankee.

Now I've never played soviets in any system but I just love their modern kit so... yeah it escalated quickly.

So I know this one is short and sweet but this little teaser will be followed by a lot more...

Sunday, 1 March 2015

I was only able to stop in at legiocon briefly this year, but it was a sight to see. Amazing tables, great models and even better people. It was a blast and between having beer and gaming on site and a super diverse gaming environment it's a terrific way to spend a weekend.